Silicone emulsifiers exhibit tremendous utility in forming water-in-oil (w/o) and oil-in-water (o/w) emulsions especially if the oil phase is predominantly silicone in nature. In the personal care field some high molecular weight silicone polyether copolymer surfactants are blended in decamethylcyclopentasiloxane (D5) and the like. This solvent is necessary due to the extremely high viscosity of many neat silicone polyether copolymer surfactants.
Although the solvent does reduce the viscosity of the copolymer the solvent does not compatabilize the polyether segments with the silicone, resulting in a milky white appearance which is undesirable in many personal care applications. Furthermore, upon standing the silicone copolymers begin to phase separate leading to the necessity to mix the contents of the container prior to sampling. In a production environment it is difficult to mix bulk or even small storage tanks efficiently resulting in a great probability of poor emulsion stability. In order to reduce the viscosity such that the mixture is easy to handle large amount of solvents are required, which necessarily results in low concentrations of silicone copolymer surfactant. This low concentration of silicone surfactant requires the end user to use much more silicone surfactant solution in the personal care formulation to achieve a stable emulsion.
Thus, there exists a demand for an effective means of solvating high molecular weight silicone surfactants that avoids the above noted undesirable discoloration of the resulting emulsion, and does not require excessive amounts of solvent.